Church of Cowards: A Wake-Up Call to Complacent Christians

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I agree Sunday service should be about Christ and I agree that Christianity is a religion not a relationship. The first chapter is a tongue-in-cheek imagining of an invasion on the shores of the United States by religious fanatics that hate Christians. My expectations of this book were somewhat low because all I knew of Matt Walsh was that he is a controversial conservative provocateur.

The supposed 'growth' of the Church has in fact caused it to splinter, into more pieces than can be counted.The main concern I had though came from an overwhelming feeling throughout the book which I would best describe as worm theology. The multiplication of desires in our culture and the church focus on the here and now instead of eternity.

As I do not normally expect that from literature, I was not left unsatisfied, but others may feel it weighs to heavily on the side of exposure. Your prayers will be much more "real", as your selfish goal demands are literally scorched away by exposure, leaving the possibility of real change.

Maybe worse, he sets up a straw man argument to defeat any arguments against his - if you don’t agree with him, it’s because you are one of the cowards he is addressing.

I especially agree with his lack of consequences features and his organizational Christianity being perverted by the "tolerance" dictate. From the pulpits to the pews theological ignorance, sometimes arrogance, and sadly purposeful distortions has created not just a worldly indistinguishable church. We must crawl to Him in our brokenness, in our sin, in our despair, in our confusion, in our desperation, and surrender. Unlike Jeremiah, however, I do not remember a finishing this book with a sense of eternal possibilities or transcendent hope. This softens the blow a bit when he goes on the warpath against professed Christians who minimize the importance of good works, who see Jesus as little more than a casual buddy, who deny that pain and suffering should be expected in the believer’s life, who dismiss Satan as fictional, who shift their moral stance based on public opinion, who exalt tolerance and a false compassion, who allow Netflix and the Internet to dominate their mind’s attention, and who neglect the importance of the organized local church.

My biggest complaint, and the reason I only gave this book 3 stars, is that Walsh seems a little confused about the essence of the gospel. Such heresies include the sin of “I’m good enough” or the sadducceal excuse of “at least I’m not like this” fill-in-the-blank sin that you happen to not (usually) commit. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. He's not entirely wrong, but the only real example of this he gives is another rant about transgender people and how the school system apparently spends a lot of time on that topic.

Then there are the super extreme statements like “the simple fact is that when a kid is sent to public school, he’s expected to navigate and survive and thrive in a hostile, confusing, amoral environment. None of these are new problems, these aren't problems with American society, but problems with human nature. The more I've learned about progressive "Christianity", the more I'm concerned for the future of those who are so willing to discount the Word of God in favor of a god of their own design. Given who is likely to choose to read this book, he may be preaching to the choir a bit, but there are messages here that all Christians can stand to hear and reflect upon. Can’t think of who I would recommend this book to, anyone who would want to read it and who wouldn’t be offended by it would already have drawn the same conclusions at Walsh.

He refers to Christian leaders he disagrees with as apostates and heathens; he only once implies that the church should go back to killing these apostates though. But I have already been dragged into the fold, kicking and screaming by you wonderful people (and I will love you all forever for it – my gratitude toward this community is boundless). Definitely a good read for anyone who wants to know how the church in America got to where it is, and a must read for American Christians. r/Catholicism is a place to present new developments in the world of Catholicism, discuss theological teachings of the Catholic Church, provide an avenue for reasonable dialogue amongst people of all beliefs, and grow in our own spirituality. Or, when he compares getting into heaven to climbing a mountain, adding that it doesn’t matter how far we’ve climbed, but only that we start the journey and do the best we can (p.